Originally all of the olives grown in this country were used for oil. The fruit was allowed to ripen on the trees until the oil content was high before picking. At this stage of maturity the oil content of the olives was as high as sixteen percent.
Around the turn of this century foreign oil imports drove many of the domestic oil producers out of business. The remaining producers changed from producing oil to producing "Spanish Style Olives", and eventually also what is called "California Black Ripe Olives". The olives for those two products are picked before they turn color so that the flesh of the fruit is firm and can withstand processing. The oil content of the fruit at that stage of maturity is only in the range of five to six percent.
Despite the efforts to pick olives suitable for such processing, it has been necessary to cull from the picked crop those olives which are undersized, oversized, or overripe. These culled olives have been regarded as having no commercial value. Consequently, for the past seventy years the culled olives have been wasted. Today, the culls, averaging between ten and twelve percent of the annual crop, are burned or taken to a landfill.
Culled olives have not been profitably used in their natural form due to processing costs, or to the reduction in quality from the rigorous processing they would have to endure.